Category Archives for Poesi

“my addresses are sentences etched in dreams, beating hearts joined by a smiling hope”

Dette er en vakker sang, og Hamza  El Din – må Allah velsigne ham for alt det han har tilført verden – er en av de fineste dikterne Afrika har produsert.

 

I’m a bird with a white heart,

and a thousand tongues.

 

I fly over creation singing,

for peace, for love, for humanity.

 

Everywhere,

I am a bird with a white heart,

and a thousand tongues.

I fly over creation singing,

for peace, for love, for humanity.

 

Everywhere,

I fly happily.

Anywhere.

 

My addresses,

my addresses are sentences etched in dreams.

Beating hearts, joined by a smiling hope.

 

For people who wish well for other people at all times,

I sing, I smile, I cry.

My tears wash away the sadness.

 

Anywhere,

wash away the sadness.

 

Our footsteps,

our footsteps are ships of desire,

that lead us around.

 

They go East one day,

they go West one day,

the lead us to habor.

 

And when the waves fight us,

and throw us around.

The echo of my voice,

in the middle of the night,

becomes a harbor and a safe place.

 

Anywhere,

a safe place.

 

Our world,

our world the day,

we join hand in hand,

becomes a garden of roses,

that bloom on a Eid night;

 

and fills with hope,

and love,

and song.

 

I am the bird on the branches,

I sleep,

and dream,

and fly happily.

 

Another negroleader, on the steps of the White House. One kneeling between the sheriff’s thighs, negotiating coolly for his people.

Jeg skal ikke forstå meg ihjel på konteksten til dette stykket. Diktet er, uavhengig av tid og sted, rasistisk og antisemittisk. Dette er ekstrem afrosentrisme. Men diktet er også, uavhengig av tid og sted, uavhengig av politisk ståsted og verdisyn, et som slår ut tennene på deg. Et som plasserer en knyttneve mellom pupillene dine. Et som sparker deg i magen. Et som ber deg om noe du ikke vet hva er. Og, ikke minst, et som  er akkompagnert av Albert Aylers saksofon.

Spennende analyse av diktet finner du her.

Black Art

Poems are bullshit unless they are

teeth or trees or lemons piled

on a step. Or black ladies dying

of men leaving nickel hearts

beating them down.

Fuck poems

and they are useful, would they shoot

come at you, love what you are,

breathe like wrestlers, or shudder

strangely after peeing.

We want live words of the hip world

live flesh and cursing blood.

Hearts,

brains,

souls splintering fire.

We want poems,

like fists beating niggers out of Jocks

or dagger poems in the slimy bellies

of the owner-jews.

Black poems to

smear on girdlemamma mulatto bitches

whose brains are red jelly stuck

between ‘lizabeth taylor’s toes.

Stinking Whores!

We want “poems that kill.”

Assassin poems.

Poems that shoot guns.

Poems that wrestle cops into alleys,

and take their weapons leaving them dead,

with tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland.

Knockoff poems for dope selling wops

or slick halfwhite

politicians.

Airplane poems, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . .tuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuh

. . .rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . .

Setting fire and death to

whities ass.

Look at the liberal spokesman for the jews

clutch his throat and puke himself into eternity

. . . rrrrrrrr

There’s a negroleader pinned to

a bar stool in Sardi’s,

eyeballs melting in hot flame.

Another negroleader,

on the steps of the White House.

One kneeling between the sheriff’s thighs,

negotiating coolly for his people.

Aggh . . . stumbles across the room . . .

Put it on him, poem.

Strip him naked to the world!

Another bad poem cracking

steel knuckles in a jewlady’s mouth.

Poem, scream poison gas on beasts in green berets.

Clean out the world for virtue and love.

Let there be no love poems written,

until love can exist freely and

cleanly.

Let Black people understand

that they are the lovers and the sons,

of warriors and sons

of warriors,

are poems and poets and,

all the loveliness here in the world

We want a black poem.

And a black world.

Let the world be a black poem,

and let all black people speak this poem.

Silently,

or loud.

“Oh Somalia, only if your beautiful wasn’t so black. The world has grown accustom to watching you die ” – Jeg gråter.

black faces
white tongues
the smell of sea water
taunts with sarcasm
drink me

oh somalia
im sorry i couldnt be there for you
but while you were trying to to get your daughter
to drink her urine
a singer died
while your children
were falling from the tree of life
scattered bushels of rotten fruit
some whiter children were shot

oh somalia
only if your beautiful wasnt so black
only if you were
gaza or
libya or
bahrain or
egypt or
norway or
england or
japan or
america
or the moon
i would mention you in a poem

only if you had
oil or
poppy or
timber or
rubber or
white people
i would mention you in my prayers

oh somalia
only if your beautiful wasnt so black
the world has grown accustom to watching you die
since i was a child
somalia – synonymous with suffering
african meant adversity
an african struggling was like
a fish swimming
a dog barking
somalia meant starvation

nevermind the magic in your poetry
or the glowing saints rising from your lands like a thousand moons

nevermind the beauty of your beaches
or the utter perfection in the hips of your women

oh somalia
only if you didnt wear the resemblance of eve
like an ornate funeral shroud
we wouldnt see you as our sin
and avert our gazes
in shame
turn our faces
to blame
only if your lack of the worldy
didnt remind us
of our lack of the other-worldly
perhaps then we would mention you

oh somalia
only if your beautiful wasnt so black

“Men vita skal me/og vone visst/at ånd må vinne/på troll til sist./”

Ja lat oss stride,

og lat oss tru,

og byggje med tankar

ei bivre-bru

til den heilage, høge framtid!

 

 

Me lìver midt i

ei villmanns-tid

med blinkande knivar

og nevestrid;

og livet er som ein bloddraum.

 

 

Men vìta skal me

og vone visst,

at ånd må vinne

på troll til sist,

og vìt på den varge villskap.

 

 

So lat oss tru

og stride som menn!

For trui er,

som det skrìvi stend,

den magt som vinner på verdi.

Strid for fred – Arne Garborg

Kvæde (1908)

“For you have potential, and ultimately decide what you do.”

Somaliske kids gjør meg ekstremt stolte. PoetNation er et prosjekt startet i USA, men har som mål å involvere alle unge somaliere verden over. Gjennom poesien, Somalias høyest aktede uttrykksform, deler somaliere i diaspora av seg selv. Følg med på herlige nye dikt, noveller og intervjuere ved å besøke nettsiden eller bli en tilhenger på facebook.

“you cold unimaginable thing”


Dear Moon

We blame you for floods

for the flush of blood

for men who are also wolves

and even though you could pull

the tide in by its hair

we tell people that we walked all

over you

we blame you for the night

for the dark

for the ghosts

you cold unimaginable thing

following us home,

we use you

to see each others frail

naked bodies beneath your blue light,

we let you watch; you

swollen against the glass

breath a halo of steam

as we move against one another

wet and desperate

like fish under

a waterlogged sky.

dear moon – warsan shire

Teori

Verden er ingen teori, den er open

så blir den teori

verden er ikkje deg ikkje meg

verden er open

verden er meg er deg

og sanneleg, tenker vi, er ikkje du ein god

teori verdig

“Verden er ingen teori” – Eldrid Lunden

“Matrubhasha”

Dreaming Gujurati

The children in my dreams speak in Gujurati

turn their trusting faces to the sun

say to me

care for us nurture us

in my dreams I shudder and I run.

I am six

in a playground of white children

Darkie, sing us an Indian song!

Eight

in a roomful of elders

all mock my broken Gujurati

English girl!

Twelve, I tunnel into books

forge an armor of English words.

Eighteen, shaved head

combat boots -

shamed by masis

in white saris

neon judgments

singe my western head.

Mother tongue.

Matrubhasha

tongue of the mother

I murder in myself.

Through the years I watch Gujurati

swell the swaggering egos of men

mirror them over and over

at twice their natural size.

Through the years

I watch Gujurati dissolve

bones and teeth of women, break them

on anvils of duty and service, burn them

to skeletal ash.

Words that don’t exist in Gujurati:

Self-expression.

Individual.

Lesbian.

English rises in my throat

rapier flashed at yuppie boys

who claim their people “civilized” mine.

Thunderbolt hurled

at cab drivers yelling

Dirty black bastard!

Force-field against teenage hoods

hissing

Fucking Paki bitch!

Their tongue – or mine?

Have I become the enemy?

Listen:

my father speaks Urdu

language of dancing peacocks

rosewater fountains

even its curses are beautiful.

He speaks Hindi

suave and melodic

earthy Punjabi

salty rich as saag paneer

coastal Kiswahili

laced with Arabic,

he speaks Gujurati

solid ancestral pride.

Five languages

five different worlds

yet English

shrinks

him

down

before white men

who think their flat cold spiky words

make the only reality.

Words that don’t exist in English:

Najjar

Garba

Arati.

If we cannot name it

does it exist?

When we lose language

does culture die? What happens

to a tongue of milk-heavy

cows, earthen pots

jingling anklets, temple bells,

when its children

grow up in Silicon Valley

to become

programmers?

Then there’s American:

Kin’uh get some service?

Dontcha have ice?

Not:

May I have please?

Ben, mane madhath karso?

Tafadhali nipe rafiki

Donnez-moi, s’il vous plait

Puedo tener…..

Hello, I said can I get some service?!

Like, where’s the line for Ay-mericans

in this goddamn airport?

Words that atomized two hundred thousand Iraqis:

Didja see how we kicked some major ass in the Gulf?

Lit up Bagdad like the fourth a’ July!

Whupped those sand-niggers into a parking lot!

The children in my dreams speak in Gujurati

bright as butter

succulent cherries

sounds I can paint on the air with my breath

dance through like a Sufi mystic

words I can weep and howl and devour

words I can kiss and taste and dream

this tongue

I take

back.